Tag Archives: slavery

Which industry enslaves you best?: 1 Cor. 7:21-23

A life in the Spirit, Doing Theology, , , , , , , , , ,

Were you a slave when you were called?
Don’t let it trouble you—although if you can gain your freedom, do so.
For the one who was a slave when called to faith in the Lord is the Lord’s freed person;
similarly, the one who was free when called is Christ’s slave.
You were bought at a price;
do not become slaves of human beings.
1 Cor. 7:21-23

What did your family or friendship circle talk about over the holidays? At our Christmas brunch, for a few minutes the conversation turned to slavery.

The education industry

I have a grandson ready to enter college (and highly qualified to do so!). The biggest question is: how much is it going to cost and how much debt is going to be accrued? I asked, in an apocalyptic tone in line with our times, “Can you avoid becoming a debt slave?” After all, Proverbs 22:7 says, “The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”

President Biden tried to give borrowers some relief by plugging some holes in the leaky federal student loan system, like the  one leaking out the loan forgiveness built in for public service. He was not too successful, with the Congress and Courts as they are. Here’s a story about it from The Hill:

Lisa Ansell, an educator from California, was one of the people who got their loans cancelled in 2021 when Biden made those changes, after she was denied eight times.

“I should have been eligible for public service loan forgiveness in 2017, which would have been the first cohort, because public service loan forgiveness was signed into law in 2007. I applied in 2017 and, of course, I was denied, no valid reason. We know that the Department of Education likes to invent reasons to prevent people from receiving their lawful cancelation,” said Ansell, the California chapter president for Student Loan Justice.

Ansell said she was relieved, but “what I felt was anger and resentment because I had been kept in indentured servitude to the Department of Education for close to five extra years, and because of that, I was never able to save up any money.”

While Biden forgave the most student debt of any president, his efforts affected only a small portion of the 45 million borrowers.  (The Hill)

These stories are so painful for us Boomer college grads! My excellent college education in California was completed before the state stopped considering it an investment in the future. The school debt slavery so many experience now all started with Governor Ronald Reagan.

When Reagan assumed office in 1966, he changed the course of the state’s higher education system. In his eight years, he cut state funding for college and universities and laid the foundation for the tuition-based system there is today. Once he became president, he continued his quest. {Great article describing in in the UC Irvine Campus Newspaper from 2023]. The “intellectual curiosity” to which the university was devoted created protesting Berkeley “brats” he said. He preferred a campus-as-business model working to create more profiteers — at least the few who could make the cut.

Since Reagan, college has gotten more and more expensive. It is amazing, really. Just think, the average American saved $5,011 in 2022. That means it would take them about 75 years to save up enough cash to send one child to a top-rated U.S. university. If your child wants to go, you’ll either need to get very rich or sell her to the debtors. (CNN 2023)

The average tuition at U.S. private colleges grew by about 4% last year to just under $40,000 per year, according to data collected by US News & World Report. For a public in-state schools, the rise was less, about 1%. But it always goes up. Another take on the stats sees that small rise as a glass half full, since 20 years ago it climbed 68%!

At highly rated or selective schools, which are most likely to get you the lucrative job or your chance to be part of the 1%, the price tag increases substantially. Harvard University charges about $58,000 in tuition and fees, per year, for undergraduate students. When you add in housing, food, books and other cost of living expenses, Harvard says you should expect to pay over $95,000.

We’re used to being rolled over by the “anti-socialists” who believe the rich deserve to rule (just like Proverbs lamented above, perhaps with a picture of Elon Musk in mind),  so we  kind of think it is common sense for slavery to debt to be part of getting an education. This guy explains how it happened to us:

While we were at it (Merry Christmas!), we enumerated other systems that have gone through the same kind of process until what was once a sphere of the “common good” has ended up in the hands of people skilled in making profit/slaves. I just want to touch on them.

Healthcare / insurance industry

There are many reasons healthcare is so costly (link). But the big ones in my mind are mergers and insurance. Big health systems have eaten up smaller rivals until they can basically charge what they want.

Worked into the fees they charge are paying off insurance companies for fear of malpractice claims. So insurance companies have their hands out all along the way, as Luigi Mangione pointed out. On average, a single person will pay $12-25 a day to the insurance slaver or they will be personally liable for the astronomical cost of a hospital visit or procedure, which will be allowed by the master, or not.

Like with universities, healthcare is a good investment for profiteers, since everyone needs it. An investor can be assured that profits are available since the cost for drugs and medical care can go up to whatever can be tolerated by raising the cost of insurance. My insurance toll goes up every year.  A recent stay in the hospital for a family member for a one-night surgery cost over $100,000.

Porn industry

The average age reported for first viewing pornography is 12. Almost half of the reporters (44%) went looking for it, while slightly more than half (58%) encountered it accidentally. It is hard to miss. The total adult entertainment revenue is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate  of 5.3% from 2024 to 2030, reaching nearly $248.18 billion by 2030.

There are legal arguments about what is obscene and so regulatable. But from listening to my twentysomething clients, the porn industry is not a discussion about personal choice, it is a slaver. Like any other addiction, there is an introductory path on the way to enslavement and profit engineered by an industry. Monetizing sexual desire is a growth industry. Under the spell of profit, people tend to think that is self-evidently appropriate.

Phones/gaming/social media industries

I got an ad for Royal Match on Bible Gateway (!) as I wrote this. That seemed about right.  We’re all getting squished or drowned no matter where we look and we have to complete some crazy puzzle (and fast!!) or someone is going to die. Our movies, games, and notifications are all full of this anxiety. That anxiety is not our fault, no matter what the powers that be tell us.

It is profitable, somehow, to produce endless ads for this game and loop us into it. The ads are incessant lures to get me hooked so I play the game on the subway instead of relating. Then the phone can report how much time I’ve spent with it every week and I can worry about that. There is nothing benign in our “economy.” No tools are provided for mere creation, we are the host for giant corporations to drain. The phone is like Neo connected to the Matrix.

The prophets made that movie in 1999! Lots of people listened to them, but they got rolled over anyway (maybe the medium is the message). Besides, even by 2011, only 35% of Americans owned a smartphone. But by 2024, 91% of them did. Now we are enslaved to it. I can’t leave the house without it, I might need to satisfy a 2-step verification to get to my money or need Siri to tell me where the nearest Chipotle is.

Sorry

I’m kinda sorry I want you to be ramped up with me.

I will look for something more uplifting to talk about next time. I know most of us are upended by Santa Ana winds in January spreading fire in L.A. Trump is setting Canada and Denmark on edge for some reason. And Jimmy Carter is dead. Anxiety is in the air and we need some relief.

But seeing what we are up against at least gives us some juice to move with the ever-rebellious Paul, and not bend the knee to the norms of a sin-fueled world. “You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of human beings.”

Ronald Reagan opened the door to the American henhouse and the foxes are finally in charge of it, now — in Paul’s time, it was Rome eating up the world. But as Paul and Jimmy Carter exemplified, you don’t need to offer yourself up to be breakfast. You might even change the world, as a result.

The rulers need slaves: Chains shall He strike

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For, some reason, when I sang “O Holy Night” for my sister on Smule the other day, I changed a word in the third verse. Instead of “Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother,” I sang, “Chains shall he strike!” I think the line could have been translated from French either way. But I  may have had a  “Freudian translation slip.”

Click for Mom’s favorite version (Andy skips the verse in question)

I think I wanted a more violent image. I’m mad about the enslavers enslaving. I was trained as a systems psychotherapist, in part, and the system is not on my side. Our leaders are more interested in profit than health. If I hear right, they think profit is health — even our health system must return a healthy profit for us to be healthy, even if it makes us unhealthy. I’m upset about all the examples of young people, especially, ensnared by things they will find hard to escape and which may, like a slaver, use them up and throw them away. Those chains and chainers need to break!

The latest enslavers

Within my clientele and relationships, here’s evidence of enslavement. They often willingly collude with their masters, but there are masters, just the same, scheming to dominate them and use them.

  • Microchips: In general, machines that deliver the internet have taught us to serve them. For instance, I walked out of the house without my phone, again, when I went to worship today. And again, I kicked myself because it is the key to me getting back safely! The King of Apple was down at Mar-a-Lago the other day to make sure it stays that way.
  • Porn has colonized teenage boys (and younger). The Progress Action Fund put out an ad telling young men that pervy old Republicans were going to invade their masturbation time by restricting porn. It seemed like an emergency to them. The porn industry is unregulated because it is deemed free-but-not-harmful speech, but it is a freedom stealer.
  • Gaming and social media have eaten up many a client’s time and self-esteem. The games are designed to keep us playing (and buying or adding to ad views). The social media platforms are designed to connect us to products – and become one to be exploited ourselves. Prominent Silicon Valley creators are well-known for limiting their children’s access to technology and social media, essentially not allowing them to become addicted, because they know what their creation has become.
  • Gambling: The newest enslaver I hate is online sports betting and other gambling. There is absolutely no benefit  to luring people into the “fun” of giving their money to ever-available casino. The oligarchs call it de-regulation. I tune into a news story and before I get there NBC  gives me a pitch for Philly Harrah’s (in Chester). I watch the Eagles and Jamie Foxx will be onscreen constantly luring me into the latest scheme.

  • Drugs: Everyone uses drugs. Some of the substances are needed and I thank God for them. But there is so much avoidance-using! And I’m surprised we still think recreation drugs are fun after an opioid epidemic — which is capitalism at its most obvious. What’s more, I’m discouraged with how many people think pot and booze enhance their life — put them to sleep, wake them up, make them someone else, etc. Sounds like a prison guard, right? And hallucinogens have become big business — especially now that the FDA approval process is deep-state “socialism.” If you ever watch commercial TV, you can’t miss how often we are promised freedom from any malady we can imagine via a weirdly-named new drug, along with every side-effect we can’t imagine.

Slaves are needed to protect capitalism

I refuse to blame individuals for how they “use” all these things. The oligarchs are using them. Capitalism is not a freedom-loving economic system; it needs slaves. Our socialism for the rich means Elon Musk can buy elections and function as an unelected, unappointed, unaccountable government agent, right there in the Presidential box at the Army-Navy game. Billionaires are able to create a government-adjacent slush fund (inauguration / transition fund) for the billionaire-in chief. Do you imagine they will allow anything to steal their riches, like your real, systemic freedom?

There is always an enslavement scheme in the back pocket of every billionaire capitalist or oligarch in any system.  Saying that out loud might sound crazy — that has been suggested before about me for other reasons, so you decide. But let’s remember, when the U.S. went to war over freeing slaves, someone had been teaching that slaves should appreciate how the masters supply them beneficial work. They claimed the Bible taught slaves to obediently stay in their place. In fact, it was taught slaves try to escape because have  a mental issue — much like homeless people are described today, or anyone else who lives outside the system.

Samuel Cartwright of Jackson Mississippi (1779-1863) invented a disease to explain the cause of runaway slaves. He called it Drapetomania — the “disease” that caused slaves to irrationally run away from their awesome plantations, not considering the death-dealing infection the plantations were themselves. People made wealthy by the system often patted themselves on the back for bringing civilization to savages and lifting them out of poverty. Job creators.

From the perspective of people who supported slavery and were supported by it, preserved it was necessary to save the country. It is the economy, stupid. George Fitzhugh wrote in  Cannibals all! or, Slaves without Masters (1857):

We warn the north, that every one of the leading Abolitionists is agitating the negro slavery question merely as a means to attain ulterior ends, and those ends nearer to home.

They know that men once fairly committed to negro slavery agitation – once committed to the sweeping principle, “that man being a moral agent, accountable to God for his actions, should not have those actions controlled and directed by another,” are, in effect, committed to Socialism and Communism. To the most ultra doctrines of Garrison, Goodell, Smith and Andrews – to no private property, no church, no law, no government, — to free love, free lands, free women, and free churches.

I had never read that until recently. But I have heard the principle espoused in one way or another my whole life, like in the last election. I’ve heard it preached.

Chains shall he break

I know the third verse of “O Holy Night” has issues. Singing “For the slave is our brother” is benevolent, but of course it is sung from a place of privilege. The slave is not singing with him. And women are excluded. It was written in 1843, after all!

But we mustn’t throw out the sentiment with its dirty bathwater. Jesus is the anti-capitalist of all time. It is his intent that we throw off our masters. I’m not going to get into whether capitalism, socialism or fascism is the better system, since I think  they are all oligarchical. And regardless of the system, people under oath to save the system — who would kill to save it — the leaders/owners/dictators, are often saving themselves. They are as good as gods. Regardless of them all, Jesus is, in truth, without rival.

“In his name all oppression will cease,” no matter what the system. The system is not God; it is not our master. Jesus is Lord. And if you think economics Trumps Jesus, you’re right where the masters want you. If you mindlessly consume their latest scheme to dominate you, you are not free.

The third week of Advent: The joy of being named free

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In a Covid haze, I watched the Jan Zizka movie on Prime (titled Medieval in the U.S. and apparently titled Warrior of God somewhere else). It is based on the early life of the Czech national hero, Jan Zizka (1360-1424) who was finally taken down by plague but never lost a battle. It is the most expensive Czech movie ever made. The film is dedicated to “everyone who fights for freedom.” [It is interesting to see the trailer in Czech and you will not miss an ounce of meaning].

I’ve studied Medieval European history for decades and still found the politics of the movie incomprehensible. Nevertheless, despite the gore, I enjoyed a view of the time when Jan Hus stirred up what became the Protestant Reformation of the church in Europe. Zizka starts out as a mercenary faithful to God and his king and ends up the populist leader of an innovative peasant army who says, “Kings may be chosen by God, but they still make the mistakes of men.”

Such revolutionary thoughts unleash 200 years of death and destruction as kings defend their rights and peasants get some rights. I don’t know if the U.S. founders would claim Zizka as an ancestor, but his spirit of “fighting for freedom” is a sacred thought in America. Unfortunately, the “survival of the fittest” built into that fighting (and into Medieval fighting) has left the country dominated by petty kings and warlords like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, the wannabe Trump, and that guy at L&I who think their best interests equals the common good. We are still taught that sacrificing lives for the “freedom” to fight for freedom is a holy act.

A better way

Maybe Zizka would have kept maturing if he would have lived a lot longer until the Anabaptists came along to free themselves from the bondage of competing for the state’s approval to be alive. They are the logical ancestors of what he was fighting for.

In the Schleitheim Confession of 1527, my spiritual ancestors, the Anabaptists say,

From all these things we shall be separated and have no part with them for they are nothing but an abomination, and they are the cause of our being hated before our Christ Jesus, who has set us free from the slavery of the flesh and fitted us for the service of God through the Spirit whom he has given us.

Therefore there will also unquestionably fall from us the unchristian, devilish weapons of force — such as sword, armor and the like, and all their use (either) for friends or against one’s enemies — by virtue of the Word of Christ. “Resist not (him that is) evil.”

The Anabaptists take Jesus at his word and example and excuse themselves from the constant fighting. As a result, both sides attack and persecute them. But they do manage to keep hope alive for the freedom given to those whom “the Son has set free.”

The Angel Appearing to the Shepherds — Thomas Cole (1833-4)

Americans are still divided as to what the word freedom actually means. When John Lewis called on us to “let freedom ring” he was calling for emancipation and equality. Alongside that call there has always been a cry for “liberty” which consists of the private enjoyment of one’s life and goods. The latter fear the emancipated who might elect majorities which might make them share their property. I think those two approaches to freedom can be balanced, but then what would we have to fight about?

I began thinking thoughts of freedom because of several Advent experiences came my way last week which demonstrrated the Lord’s better way.

The first had to do with the song O Holy Night. I was going to record it on Smule and scrolled through various karaoke renditions. I did not realize that many recent versions truncate the second verse, which is all about emancipation. They just use the second line:

Chains shall he break for the slave is our brother
and in his name all oppression will cease.

They cut out the first line:

Truly he taught us to love one another
his law if love and is gospel in peace.

They could just be shortening an overlong song (they skip the third verse completely), while retaining one of the most dramatic lines. But I think they might also have erased that pesky love and peace in honor of freedom fighting. People don’t love Jesus but they certainly love their rights.

A second experience was hearing about my friend totally immobilized by sciatica. He could not even get out of bed without severe pain. Yet he wrote me a note to tell me he had experienced the most profound sense of God’s presence and joy he had ever known while confined to his bed. He felt freed from all sorts of burdens he had been carrying. The experience completely confounded him since he was so bound physically and so freed spiritually. But he completely welcomed it. He was overjoyed to be free of the past.

Freedom is the experience of life in the Spirit. It is not the result of fighting everyone else to dominate them or to be free of them. The endless fight for justice is real but it will never be conclusive, as our Anabaptist forebears discerned. I would like to take on their attitude as they sought to take on Christ’s

Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,

who, though he existed in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness. (Phil. 2)

The Bible does not condone slavery. But does say the enslaved are free in Christ and the masters are mastered. Even if you are laid out with Covid or some other ailment, the joy of Christ can transcend your pain. Freedom is not something doled out by the powerful or something to be stolen from them. It is the gift of God.

The baby in the manger in Bethlehem is God emptied of her rights, taking on our bondage, and showing the way of transcendence.  “So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” How you define freedom may end up encapsulating how much of it you experience. One of the things I am learning this Advent, again, is freedom names me. In chains, in bed, diseased, despised, disempowered or empowered, Jesus sets me free and that’s enough. He calls me free and I respond when I am called. It is joy.

My freedom is an act of soul, not a feature of my condition

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After I presented to the BIC’s Theological Study Group in May on our approach to “church discipline,” the convener’s first words in response were, “That was unconventional.”

I was still reflecting on my surprise at that response when I was in Assisi. There I refreshed my understanding of Francis’ radical response to the call of Lady Poverty and his identification with the marginalized. Now that’s unconventional! Like I wrote before, he was presciently rebelling against the beginnings of the exploitative capitalism Americans confuse with “freedom” these days.

It was depressing for Francis to realize the economy of Italy and the church were devoted to war and profit, and violence was always waiting to keep the powerless in line. As he went to the war front in Egypt and resisted writing a stifling agreement about his community for the church bureaucracy, he experienced his own powerlessness and it transformed him. He experienced what Paul was describing when he said his freedom made him a slave to all. And he was doing what Jesus did when he not only took on humanity, but put himself in the place of a slave – a devalued person who can be killed with impunity.

A freedom far too easily pleased

Last week’s further revelation for me was an insightfully written piece of history in the NYT Magazine: In order to understand the brutality of American capitalism, you have to start on the plantation.It describes the conventions of the U.S. economy and the church which normally colludes with it. When we see how the legacy of slavery still has us in slavery, it calls for a lot more than unconventionality!

I have persistently railed against the corporate and now “gig” economy as basically  having all the elements of a slave economy. But I mostly reacted instinctively. This article provides an interesting back up argument for what I see all around me. In the U.S. we are subject to the premier example of “low-road” capitalism and so many of us think it is better, even think it is God’s will — an inspired economy designed to provide us the freedom of individual choice. I won’t paste in the whole article, but this gives you the feeling for what Francis was rebelling about:

Perhaps you’re reading this at work, maybe at a multinational corporation that runs like a soft-purring engine. You report to someone, and someone reports to you. Everything is tracked, recorded and analyzed, via vertical reporting systems, double-entry record-keeping and precise quantification. Data seems to hold sway over every operation. …

A 2006 survey found that more than a third of companies with work forces of 1,000 or more had staff members who read through employees’ outbound emails. The technology that accompanies this workplace supervision can make it feel futuristic. But it’s only the technology that’s new. The core impulse behind that technology pervaded plantations, which sought innermost control over the bodies of their enslaved work force.

Women and children in a cotton field in the 1860s. J. H. Aylsworth, via the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

This not only created a starkly uneven playing field, dividing workers from themselves; it also made “all nonslavery appear as freedom,” as the economic historian Stanley Engerman has written [example]. Witnessing the horrors of slavery drilled into poor white workers that things could be worse. So they generally accepted their lot, and American freedom became broadly defined as the opposite of bondage. It was a freedom that understood what it was against but not what it was for; a malnourished and mean kind of freedom that kept you out of chains but did not provide bread or shelter. It was a freedom far too easily pleased….

If today America promotes a particular kind of low-road capitalism — a union-busting capitalism of poverty wages, gig jobs and normalized insecurity; a winner-take-all capitalism of stunning disparities not only permitting but awarding financial rule-bending; a racist capitalism that ignores the fact that slavery didn’t just deny black freedom but built white fortunes, originating the black-white wealth gap that annually grows wider— one reason is that American capitalism was founded on the lowest road there is.

Freely joining the stigmatized

As Francis was limping off into his solitude after being essentially defeated by the entrenched ways of European culture, his defeat was already becoming his glory. It was well-known that he hid the marks of Jesus that began to appear and bleed on his body. The last thing he wanted was to become the object of a curial investigation or a commodity to be consumed by vacationers to Assisi. He quickly became those after he died, but he wanted to die in freedom.

“The five wounds that Francis bore were a body sermon which proclaimed two things: Frist, his abiding desire to stay on the side of the people who went about their whole lives with various stigmas – beggars, criminals, or lepers; second, Francis’ body revealed how much he himself has been injured and humiliated against his will, branded a loser in his contest with the powerful, and clearly conscious of his impotence” (in The Last Christian by Adolf Holl).

It was in this terrible condition that Francis  found himself free. He was finally like Jesus at the last Supper giving himself as food to the community in utter, fearless openness, free of the defenses and demands that run our days and make our societies.

In Assisi I saw some splendorous and kitschy crucifixes that belied the wounds of Francis and the the Lord. We’re not so open to freedom. When we see the poor we say, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  I pondered the paper cut of a forgivable slight while Francis received the spiritual slash of the spear.

Freedom the world cannot supply

I pondered the “cut” I felt at the study group, not only because it was thoughtless (and easily excused), but mainly because it was a tiny cost I paid for being “unconventional.” Francis was slavishly following the example of Paul who imitated Jesus by being unconventional for the sake of the salvation of sinners and freedom from death. My marks of suffering with Jesus are probably enough, but they can seem tiny in comparison.

We’re kind of surprised we suffer at all. Even though Jesus dies for us, and tells us we will be persecuted if we do not conform to the world, we still think, “There but for the grace of God go I.”  If we work too hard at anything, we think, “This better be worth it!” When we suffer for something or suffer against something we think we’re extraordinary don’t we?

But suffering for or suffering against are probably too weak as ideas if we want to understand what Jesus and the Bible writers teach. The fighting against or for something will be unconventional for most of us, but ideas aren’t at the heart of things. Francis was not just a great rebel; his extreme obedience was not the point of his life!  He was just trying to follow Jesus with all his heart and that was trouble enough.

Houston’s pitching staff, which includes Wade Miley, Joe Smith, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander, benefits greatly from the work of the team’s analytics department.
Astros pitchers

Right now, the Houston Astros are riding high on the back of a clubhouse motto:  Be the best version of the best player you can be. I imagine a few of them are Christians and this fits right into their faith. We could put it up as a motto for our cell: This is a place where you can become the best version of the true self you are called to become. That will cause enough trouble.

And suffering enough trouble is important. Can the poet compose without rebellion? Is there any truth without radical obedience? Like Jesus, my freedom, my poetry and obedience, is an act of heart, soul, mind and strength, in league with the development of my true self and the restoration of creation. My freedom is not a condition monitored by the police. America is not the land of my opportunity.

I am not a slave by birth but by rebirth. Some of us think our present condition of servitude is just our lot, to be rebelled against or obeyed — welcome to the ways of the world.  Jesus, Paul, and Francis all know better. They are free to live in the Spirit. The world doesn’t generally like them, but the self-giving love of being among the marginalized tastes like joy.

Is it OK to use my work resources for the church or is that stealing?

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Several people came up to Jesus and asked him questions: “Who is my neighbor?” for instance, and “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Jesus pointed the first man toward overcoming the hatred between Jews and Samaritans! He pointed the other toward selling all he had and giving the money to the poor! I think many people quickly decided to stop asking him questions! Maybe you don’t dare, either — not really, at least.

I think the vast majority of people who stopped asking would be like American Christians, at least a lot of them, who still won’t care for their neighbors (especially if they don’t share their “identity”) and certainly would not even consider impoverishing themselves to care for “the poor” as a class of people. How many times have I heard, with a laugh, “Be careful what you ask God, you might get an answer!”

So why do we keep asking so many questions?

We keep bravely asking because we have the freedom to do so. That is, we have freedom to ask any question we want if we live in the “tier one” of Paul’s thinking, as our new nomenclature identified last year. We exercise our freedom in Christ when we ask whatever question we want and do not fear what we will hear in reply. What can happen to us, now that Christ has set us free?

When the question in the title was asked on our Leadership Team Survey, I don’t think it came from such freedom. I don’t know, because it was anonymous, but I don’t think so. I think It probably came from “tier two” thinking where things are a bit murkier than the confident faith of tier one. That’s OK. Probably the majority of us are working toward forming a container that is settled enough to receive the content the Spirit of God wants to pour into it. It takes a lot of development to resonate with revelation. That development  includes asking some questions that might result in answers that reorient our entire lives!

We also keep asking questions because we have no idea what we are doing much of the time. We need help figuring out how to be alive, much more how to be alive in the Spirit! There are no “dumb” questions. The word “dumb” developed into meaning “stupid,” you know. It started with “mute” or “unable to speak” and, by extension “disabled.” Maybe dumb should really mean “unable to ask a question!” We try to accept every tiny question we or someone has because we know we are all seeking and developing. What’s more, we know God became tiny and humble in order to hear and bear all our questions and to assure us anything that confuses or troubles us will always be heard and carried.

So what is the answer to the question?

As with most questions, there were a lot of answers our team explored last week. And even though this question seems like a simple one, just like the questions people thought Jesus would simply answer, the question set off some lively, instructive dialogue at our Leadership Team meeting.

The simple answer is: If you employer thinks using company supplies for personal uses is stealing, then yes, it is stealing. Ask her for some paper for personal use and see what she says. If he gives you reason to think he doesn’t mind, then no, it is not stealing. The general implication is that things belonging to other people are used for the purposes they design. But another implication would be that you would not know their designs unless you ask them.

This answer breaks down a bit, however, when it comes to intangible resources, like time or thoughts, which are the things we mainly sell to our employers these days. It would not be surprising that an employer acted as a slave-owner who behaves as if they own you, not just the paper supplies. They would never say this, of course, but they might behave as if they own all our time and resources. The partner in the law firm is in St. Lucia, but you are supposed to work 80 hours a week to do what is assigned. You are otherwise booked, but you must come into work if called. Some employers might fire you if you call your sick mother on company time.

This sense of ownership might extend to what we think! If you violate the political or religious sensibilities of some employers, they might fire you, even though that’s illegal in many cases. So some people might be afraid to use their money for things other than what their employer desires (or for anything a prospective employer might desire in a new employee). Even if an employer actually assumes people need to care for other people than company employees during the work day, you might not even ask if you could do it and just wait until the end of the workday to care because you assume the principle is: the employer owns my time and thoughts during work hours (and maybe all the time!).

Does paying you entitle the employer to police your time and thoughts as if your personhood were part of the resources they have? Are you stealing if you make a phone call? Write an email? Take a break for a church, school or community meeting? Call in sick because you are sick of not being at the retreat day the church has planned outside your two-week vacation allotment?

I think the tangibles are easy. Don’t take manila folders unless you ask. But the intangibles are not. I am very “liberal” about the intangibles, since I expect you will do your job with excellence and, at the same time not become “slaves of men” (as Paul says). So your employer is going to get more than their money’s worth, and you are going to be free. Serving a master so Jesus is glorified is a strategy only a free person can apply.

Moral questions are a good place to start

One reason I thought this was a good question for our Leadership Team dialogue is that it is a moral question. Morals are concerned with the principles of right and wrong behavior and the goodness or badness of human character. We are regularly (as in every week, at least) faced with someone’s moral issues around Circle of Hope. People have been known to leave the church because of them. The questions Jesus was asked were deeply moral questions from moral people brave enough to ask them. Most beginners are confronted with questions like them all day, if they are actually growing into true selves. We need to ask them.

But let’s be honest. Moral questions are not the ultimate questions. Jesus was regularly accused of being immoral, himself, and was killed for being a lawbreaker, wasn’t he? So there is something to think about when we ask moral questions seeking to get things right. Nevertheless we will ask them, because how we have sex, how we eat, how we share, how we talk, how we raise children, how we think and so behave are all moral issues. If we don’t leap at them to satisfy our own curiosity, someone else will probably leap for us (just watch Fox vs. MSNBC).

Unfortunately, I think most believers are probably more comfortable with questioning how we use work resources than they are asking how the Spirit is leading regardless of how our enslavers dominate us. But we have to start somewhere!  Let’s keep asking, and hope someone who is farther along the way is around to help us hear the answers. Thank God, the resurrected Lord is around and our questions often lead us directly to a deeper relationship with him.

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For the slaves of Christ, existence is resistance.

Doing Theology, The Mission, , , , ,

Last week about thirty of us slaves of Christ were doing some theology about Paul’s teaching in the New Testament and how it could inform how we think about our “social action.” The two-tiered idea we explored has proven helpful to many people so far. See it for yourself in this article.

One of the places where we could see Paul’s two-tiered thinking was when he related to slaves. In this day, when people are into the idolatry Trump preaches, in which young people are chained to their survival jobs and debt, when white supremacists are trying to re-enslave African Americans, and in which we are all tempted to bow in fear before the Tweeter-in-chief, we may need to think about freeing the slaves more consciously than ever.

Be small

First, if we want to get anything out of Paul’s thoughts on slavery, we have to remember that when he speaks to women, Gentiles and slaves seriously as members of the church, his respect is subversive. We often forget, as we turn our “imperial gaze” on the “others” who are minorities and marginalized, that Paul is writing as one of those “others.” He and his little groups of persecuted misfits are not speaking from a position of privilege and power. His view is small; he has become small; the people in his church plants are the “others” in their towns and villages. So he writes from “under” not “over.”

One of the first tasks in understanding him is to let go of any imperial outlook, the supposed privileges of being an American citizen, the protection of the huge military apparatus, etc., and become small enough to need a Savior, to act as a slave of Christ. Translators during the Reformation undermined our understanding when they decided that translating the common Greek word for “slave” as slave was too demeaning and tidied  things up by using the word servant  instead (which is a big difference). In Philippians 2:7, for instance, Paul describes Jesus as taking on the condition of a slave. It is much more realistic, isn’t it, to see how humankind oppresses Jesus than to see Jesus as serving up salvation to us as we decide whether we want it or not. In order to hear what Paul, the slave of Jesus, is teaching, we’ll have to get into his slavish shoes.

Slaving

Once in Paul’s shoes, we can see what he is talking about. His thoughts are a lot bigger than whether a person is going to gain social or political freedom. That achievement would be frosting on his hope cake. The cake is being freed from the need to be freed from what humans do to you and being a grateful slave to the salvation that Jesus is working into us. Here’s just one example of how he thinks:

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” – Colossians 3:23-4. That last clause should read: “It is for the Lord (master) Christ you are slaving.”

Everyone who is thoroughly trained in democratic equality and the centrality of human choice (the general God-free zone of Western thought these days) is likely to think those lines are heresy; it might even feel icky to read them, taboo. Slaving?! Paul has none of those qualms. He finds it an honor to be a slave in Christ’s house as opposed to being a ruler in a house of lies. God is a “master” beyond anything Hobbes, Rousseau or Ayn Rand could imagine.

For the slaves of Christ, existence is resistance. - Development

So when he goes on to talk to slaves, locked in their situation with masters, benign or despotic, Paul has a variety of options for them. His first tier thinking makes him completely free to do the best he can with what he’s got in the day to day, passing-away, fallen world. So he says to his brothers and sisters in Colossae:

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord…. Anyone who does wrong will be repaid for their wrongs, and there is no favoritism.” — Colossians 3:22, 25

Elsewhere, of course, he advises slaves to get free if they can. And he tells Philemon to treat his runaway slave as a brother, or to just charge him whatever it costs to set him free.

There are no slaves in Christ. A slave in the world is God’s free person. A free person in the world is God’s slave. This is hard to translate for people who believe the delusion that law makes them free and rational rules and education will prevent suffering. Paul might respond to such ideas, as he did, and say, “Though I am blameless before the law, I am God’s prisoner, a lifelong felon freed by grace.” Similarly, no one works for human masters, we do whatever we do for the Lord. Even when oppressed, we experience the hope that we will have our reward and the oppressors will get theirs.

How do we take action?

So what do we do in the face of the oppressive masters beating down on us and the world? Pray harder, safe in our salvation? Absolutely. But that is not all. We are already taking action in many more ways. I think we summarize what we do well in our statement of our mission.

Loving the thirsty people of our fractured region,
we keep generating a new expression of the church
to resist and restore with those moved by the Holy Spirit.

We resist. I am Christ’s slave. That is a defiant statement of resistance. My existence is resistance. I will never be a slave to a human, no matter what one does to me: buy me, imprison me, or take away my livelihood. I will always belong to the Lord, forever. And, as Jesus demonstrates, in a very real sense, Jesus will belong to me forever. He has made Himself our slave.

We restore. I am an obedient slave. My work is well-ordered. Jesus is the Lord of all and we are making that known and effective, day by day. We restore by reorienting people’s identities to align with their salvation. We restore by relentlessly loving in the face of hate and indifference. We restore by telling the truth in the face of lies. We restore by sharing our resources and making peace. And, I think most important, we restore by practicing the kind of mutuality that creates an alternative community that is not allied with the powers that dig up the world and destroy connections between God and people like hurricanes blasting through our village.

Our existence is the fount of our resistance. We can only hope that the country will be put to right soon. But even if it isn’t, we know who we are and we know what to do.  Being knit together in the love of Jesus is more important than ever, isn’t it!

Patrick had nerve — redux

The Mission, , , , , , , ,

St_-Patrick2Why aren’t we spiritual ancestors of St. Patrick more like St. Patrick? Unlike him,

  • we are often stuck on a treadmill of trying harder at things that aren’t working.
  • we keep looking for answers to questions that no longer need to be answered.
  • we get stuck in endless either/or arguments when the dichotomies were false to begin with
  • we undermine the leaders we so desperately need to help us off our treadmill and out of our arguing

We need the kind of nerve Patrick had.

Some of what I am thinking comes right out of Edwin Friedman’s book Failure of Nerve (which our cell leader coordinators have been reading). But St. Patrick (387-461). demonstrated how to be a healthy and effective leader long before systems theory gurus discovered what he already knew. Whether it is a family, a cell, a church or a business, a person who lives out of their true self makes a good leader. Friedman thinks knowledgeable people can become this “differentiated” person, and some can. But, for most of us, we need Jesus at the heart of the process to have a prayer of becoming so mature and useful.

Right now most systems we encounter are stuck in a morass of anxiety and ineffectiveness: the schools, License and Inspections, the Water Department, to name a few, but also some families, some communal households, quite a few cells, and some compassion teams. Why don’t we have more leaders like Patrick in these places? Why aren’t Christians in the United States, in general, more like Patrick – building defiant fires on hills and daring the powers-that-be to oppose Jesus? How did St. Patrick’s Day become famous for being a day when people get drunk? Could it be a failure of nerve?

It could be. Someone has to get free. Someone has to go first. Someone has to risk realizing their imagination.

Patrick got free. He was a barely-Christian teenager when has was captured by Irish slavers. While he was stuck on his hillside tending sheep for “the man” in the wilderness of Foclut, he did not conform, he turned to prayer. Eventually he had a vision that told him to escape. He writes that he heard a voice tell him,

“Come and see, your ship is waiting for you.”

After running for his life across the whole island he made his way on to a ship departing for France where he perfected his faith. Is the Spirit calling you?

Patrick went first. Restored to his family in Britain, perhaps he could have taken his place in their upper-class life and helped rebuild and protect his homeland. But he was not content to stay on the treadmill. He writes,

“I had a vision in my dreams of a man who seemed to come from Ireland. His name was Victoricius, and he carried countless letters, one of which he handed over to me. I read aloud where it began: ‘The Voice of the Irish.’ And as I began to read these words, I seemed to hear the voice of the same men who lived beside the forest of Foclut . . . and they cried out as with one voice, ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.’ I was deeply moved in heart and I could read no further, so I awoke.”

He went to Ireland and immediately began having success in leading people to a knowledge and faith in Jesus. There is undoubtedly a circumstance in which you are called to be that person. But can you still be moved?        

Patrick risked realizing his imagination. He wrote,

“Daily I expect murder, fraud or captivity, but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God almighty who rules everywhere.”

It seems like he almost delighted in taking risks for the gospel. He wrote,

“I must take this decision disregarding risks involved and make known the gifts of God and his everlasting consolation. Neither must we fear any such risk in faithfully preaching God’s name boldly in every place, so that even after my death, a spiritual legacy may be left for my brethren and my children.”

The famous prayer attributed to him called “the breastplate” is all about gaining nerve in the face of threats.

drunk st. patricksIn a famous letter, amazingly still preserved from the 5th century, Patrick takes a stand against a great enemy with which he was very familiar: slavery. A British tyrant, Coroticus, had carried off some of Patrick’s converts into slavery. Patrick, now a bishop, excommunicated him and told him to repent and free them, writing:

“Ravenous wolves have gulped down the Lord’s own flock which was flourishing in Ireland and the whole church cries out and laments for its sons and daughters.”

That’s nerve.

Being one’s true self and trusting God in the midst of a world that is always difficult often makes one a leader, it at least allows us to influence people by being the presence of Jesus and offering an alternative to the destruction happening. Patrick did not think he was particularly qualified to be such a person. Despite his success, as an older man he writes,

“I still blush and fear more than anything to have my lack of learning brought out into the open. For I am unable to explain my mind to learned people.”

Nevertheless, he gives thanks to God,

“who stirred up me, a fool, from the midst of those who are considered wise and learned in the practice of the law as well as persuasive in their speech and in every other way and ahead of these others, inspired me who is so despised by the world.”

So many in the world get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day! It started last Friday in my UPenn neighborhood. Is staying drunk in various ways an attempt to avoid looking at one’s lack of nerve? So many more don’t get drunk and don’t even know today is a special day honoring a special man. They are so consumed by the slavery of whatever dominates them that it is hard for them to even visualize an alternative: drunkenness or holiness. They need a leader; they at least need a person with some nerve. Someone has to get free. Someone has to go first. Someone has to risk realizing their imagination.

Patrick had nerve

Leadership, Psychological growth, The Mission, , , , , , ,

St_-Patrick2Why aren’t we spiritual ancestors of St. Patrick more like St. Patrick? Unlike him, we are often stuck on a treadmill of trying harder at things that aren’t working. We keep looking for answers to questions that no longer need to be answered. We get stuck in endless either/or arguments when the dichotomies were false to begin with. We undermine the leaders we so desperately need to help us off our treadmill and out of our arguing. We need the kind of nerve Patrick had.

Some of what I am thinking comes right out of Edwin Friedman’s book Failure of Nerve. But St. Patrick (387-461). demonstrated how to be a healthy and effective leader long before system theory gurus discovered what he already knew. Whether is it a family, a cell, a church or a business, a person who lives out of their true self makes a good leader. Friedman thinks knowledgeable people can become this “differentiated” person, and some can. But, for most of us, we need Jesus at the heart of the process to have a prayer of becoming so mature and useful.

Right now most systems we encounter are stuck in a morass of anxiety and ineffectiveness: the schools, License and Inspections, the Water Department, to name a few, but also some families, some communal households, quite a few cells, some compassion teams. Why don’t we have more leaders like Patrick in these places? Why aren’t Christians in the United States, in general, more like Patrick – building defiant fires on hills and daring the powers-that-be to oppose Jesus? How did St. Patrick’s Day become famous for being a day when people get drunk? Could it be a failure of nerve?

It could be. Someone has to get free. Someone has to go first. Someone has to risk realizing their imagination.

Patrick got free. He was a barely-Christian teenager when has was captured by Irish slavers. While he was stuck on his hillside tending sheep for the man in the wilderness of Foclut, he did not conform, he turned to prayer. Eventually he had a vision that told him to escape. He writes that he heard a voice tell him, “Come and see, your ship is waiting for you.” After running for his life across the whole island he made his way onto a ship departing for France where he perfected his faith. That’s nerve.

Patrick went first. Restored to his family in Britain, perhaps he could have taken his place in their patrician life and helped rebuild and protect his homeland. But he was not content to stay on the treadmill. He writes, “I had a vision in my dreams of a man who seemed to come from Ireland. His name was Victoricius, and he carried countless letters, one of which he handed over to me. I read aloud where it began: ‘The Voice of the Irish.’ And as I began to read these words, I seemed to hear the voice of the same men who lived beside the forest of Foclut . . . and they cried out as with one voice, ‘We appeal to you, holy servant boy, to come and walk among us.’ I was deeply moved in heart and I could read no further, so I awoke.” He went to Ireland and immediately began having success in leading people to a knowledge and faith in Jesus.  That’s nerve.

Patrick risked realizing his imagination. He wrote, “Daily I expect murder, fraud or captivity, but I fear none of these things because of the promises of heaven. I have cast myself into the hands of God almighty who rules everywhere.” It seems like he almost delighted in taking risks for the gospel. He wrote, “I must take this decision disregarding risks involved and make known the gifts of God and his everlasting consolation. Neither must we fear any such risk in faithfully preaching God’s name boldly in every place, so that even after my death, a spiritual legacy may be left for my brethren and my children.” The famous prayer attributed to him called “the breastplate” is all about gaining nerve in the face of threats. That’s nerve.

Isn’t the lack of nerve the way to a rut?

drunk st. patricksIn a famous letter, amazingly still preserved from the 5th century, Patrick takes a stand against a great enemy with which he was very familiar: slavery. A British tyrant, Coroticus, had carried off some of Patrick’s converts into slavery. Patrick, now a bishop, excommunicated him and told him to repent and free them, writing: “Ravenous wolves have gulped down the Lord’s own flock which was flourishing in Ireland and the whole church cries out and laments for its sons and daughters.”  That’s nerve.

Being one’s true self and trusting God in the midst of a world that is always difficult often makes one a leader, it at least allows us to influence people by being the presence of Jesus and offering an alternative to the destruction happening. Patrick did not think he was particularly qualified to be such a person. Despite his success, as an older man he writes, “I still blush and fear more than anything to have my lack of learning brought out into the open. For I am unable to explain my mind to learned people.” Nevertheless, he gives thanks to God, “who stirred up me, a fool, from the midst of those who are considered wise and learned in the practice of the law as well as persuasive in their speech and in every other way and ahead of these others, inspired me who is so despised by the world.”

So many in the world get drunk on St. Patrick’s Day! Is it a way to avoid looking at their lack of nerve? So many more don’t get drunk and don’t even know it is a special day honoring a special man. They are so consumed by the slavery of whatever dominates them that it is hard for them to even visualize an alternative: drunkenness or holiness. They need a leader, they at least need a person with some nerve. Someone has to get free. Someone has to go first. Someone has to risk realizing their imagination.

Gen-Y: Do Not Become Slaves of Human Masters

Doing Theology, The Mission, , , ,

I get confused about the arbitrary labels assigned to “generations” in the marketing worldview that dominates us. But, for today, let’s go along with Cindy Krischer Goodman and call them Gen-Y, the 18-30 year olds I love so much. The Inquirer picked up one of Mrs. Krischer Goodman’s pieces (and may have edited it to death it is so choppy) about how the recession has smacked the age-group with reality. “About 37% of 18-29 year-olds have been underemployed or out of work during the recession, the highest share among the age group in more than three decades.”

Gen-Y Singapore

I love talking about reality. The reality Krischer Goodman is talking about is that Gen-Y’s prized work-life balance is no longer a viable goal. They must swallow “humble pie,” adopt a “new attitude” and make themselves “more valuable.” They must face up to being “coddled” and stop demanding raises, promotions, time off, training and the hottest technology or they will just be raising their unemployment rate even beyond its present 15.3%. They need to return to being the slaves they were bred to be.

One of the most intriguing things about Gen-Y is that they have a very quiet rebellion going on. I think it is their best attribute, even when I wish it were more vocal and aggressively subversive. In a book about how they work, Stan Smith writes, “They are compliant for now. Yet if you dig beneath the surface, their underlying values are still there…They want flexibility. They want work-life balance. But for now, they are just not as vocal about how they want it served up.” They are compliant….FOR NOW.

You’d think they were an army of zombies ready to enter the village and eat Mom. It is amazing that the ominous demands laying in wait are:

  1. not to be treated like they are machines or pack animals and
  2. wanting a forty-hour (or just not seventy hour) workweek and more than two-weeks of vacation a year!

Cesar Alvarez says the recession is a wake-up call that will change the generation’s behavior. “I think their concept of the ultimate safety net has shattered. I’m seeing them much more engaged. I think this was a tipping point that helped the new generation suit up for the game.“ He reminds me of my football coaches in high school who used “galley slave” as their model for training.

I couldn’t decide which scripture best responded to this article. So I chose two. They kind of go together:

“Were you a slave when called? Do not be concerned about it. Even if you can gain your freedom, make use of your present condition now more than ever. For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters.” (1 Corinthians 7:21-3)…”For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error. They promise them freedom, but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them.” (2 Peter 2:18-19)

The Inquirer highlighted the article: “For the coddled, tech-savvy young, the recession has brutalized their income, savings, career plans.” Next thing you know they will be forced to rely on Jesus and others for life itself! They might discover that the freedom they are offered is slavery, and the slavery they think is conforming to Christ is freedom. My hope does not waver.